A high holy holiday for the religious and a sweets-filled, extra-long weekend off of work for us atheists, agnostics and those of other faiths, Easter is ultimately a celebratory occasion for all. It’s a time for the ritualistic anthropomorphism of bunnies (please, no Shannon Tweed jokes) and to stuff your face with oft-waxy chocolate. And once the sugar rush turns into a sugar crash, you will probably be taking some downtime on the sofa in front of the telly.

But what if the obligatory re-airings of The Ten Commandments, The Robe or Jesus of Nazareth are not your cup of tea? Prithee, what shall thou watch?

For those applicable souls, I have selected six alternative, possibly Easter-related recommended viewing suggestions. Read the rest of this entry »

(Graphic and pumpkins by VA. Stills grabbed from web and videos from YouTube)

Last week I laid out 13 possibly-Halloween-friendly viewing suggestions and this week I have an unlucky 13 playlist appropriate for the season of graves’n’goblins. I’ve tried to avoid the more obvious selections with choices ranging from Halloween-specific to it’s-a-conceptual-stretch. So, parade around in the costume of your choice, inhale bite sized chocolate bars, crank up the gramophone and groove (there’s also a link to the playlist at the bottom of the page) …

I first encountered Blondie in the pages of NYC-based Rock Scene magazine in the summer of 1975. It was a single page feature, appearing less than a year after the group’s formation and first shows at CBGBs. Blondie had begun by opening for the also-nascent Ramones who had similarly been popping up in recent Rock Scene issues. Indeed, most of the mid-70s NYC underground first came to my attention via RS.

Retrospectively, I now see what an odd, prescient publication it was on a few fronts.

Season’s Greetings from Schlitz. And Joan from Mad Men (Life, December 1960) .

Originally published on OpenSalon.com on December 19, 2011

Christmas is the season of peace, good cheer, and jollity … and maxing out your credit card; stressing over what to buy everyone in between bouts of insomnia as you try to recall if you bought Uncle Walt a similar pair of McGregor socks last year; rock’em sock’em parents giving each other a sharp right hook as they fight over the last (insert latest toy fad here) on the shelves while dodging pepper spray; abused, overworked sales staff squaring off against exhausted, overheated shoppers to discern who’s more fed up; mall patrons launching law suits following multi-car fender benders after a downpour of freezing rain has turned the parking lot into a fiesta of black ice …

ABOUT My Life — In Concert! … *****NOTE: Blog-wide image repairs are underway (images linked over to my opensalon.com page disappeared when the site closed). Eventually all images will be restored. Thanks for your visual patience. YOURS, THE MANAGEMENT**** Greetings! I am a terminal music fan who will be writing about my life as a concertgoer from 1975 to the present. It’s about the music but also about the lives lived along with it, with each gig recollected as a whole experience rather than simply being a description of the performance: a mix of memoir, concert review, music history, and philosophical musing. I will also sometimes publish off-theme entries, both music and non-music-related. ****** I’m on Facebook (www.facebook.com/mylifeinconcert), have a work-in-progess YouTube channel, VATV (www.youtube.com/user/mylifeinconcert). Since 2010, my primary publishing platform and audience existed over on Open Salon but that online venue sadly closed in March 2015. Welcome here to all those who were following me and commenting over there. ****** Thanks to Cublet for artwork assistance.